The Art and Soul of Baking

The Warmth of Christmas Breakfast

There’s a lot required of Christmas breakfast – it needs to be special, celebratory, easy (or at least do-ahead), appealing to kids and adults, and not too filling, since there are treats and dinner just ahead. That’s a tall order for a morning meal. My solution is to always go simple, seasonal and comforting. We have steaming café au lait bowls of hot chocolate topped with cream, a compote dish filled with citrus segments – blood oranges, navel oranges, oro blanco and ruby grapefruit – along with super-crisp bacon, and either French toast or scones, both of which can be prepared ahead of time.

For French toast, simply soak the bread in the custard overnight and it will be ready to sauté to golden crispness in the morning. I like to include cardamom, cinnamon, and a splash of Grand Marnier in the custard. Scones can be prepared even further in advance, so there’s nothing to do the night before. Several days (or weeks) ahead, make the scone dough, cut it into portions, freeze until firm, then transfer into a ziptop freezer bag until Christmas morning. Once the bacon is done, turn the oven up and, as you warm the hot chocolate, bake the scones (yep, straight from the freezer to the oven, adding a couple of minutes to the baking time). Or if you don’t want to get that far ahead, simply make the dough the night before, cut it, and arrange for baking on a parchment-lined sheet pan. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until morning.

There are plenty of delicious scone ideas, but the most outrageously over-the-top one I can think of is Chocolate Toffee Scones. Moist and tender and bursting with mini chocolate chips and toffee chips, then topped with even more toffee chips that melt into a crisp crust of caramel-y goodness, these are a special occasion treat. Just the sort of thing for Christmas morning. If you want to be just a bit more restrained, try the Buttermilk Scones with Dried Cherries and Orange, which are deceptively simple yet incredibly addictive. Both of these recipes have converted scone haters – “they’re so dry and dense” – into scone addicts – “Oh wow, this is how scones are supposed to taste!” Comforting, easy, and delicious – either one is pretty much the perfect start for a warm and wonderful Christmas. Merry Christmas to you and yours.

More A Taste of Tradition ideas and recipes follow after the jump

Creating A Gorgeous Cookie Tray

No doubt about it, its cookie time. No matter how much we love them the rest of the year, during the holiday season, we go into an absolute frenzy for cookies. For proof just look at the cover of nearly any December-issue food and family magazine.

There’s no better gift than a tray of assorted cookies from your kitchen. And after you’ve put all that effort into making wonderful cookies, why not make their presentation as good as the flavor? With very little effort, you can make a gorgeous cookie tray to rival one from any patisserie. To truly showcase your handiwork, however, there are a few things to take into consideration. Here are my top 5 tips for the most beautiful presentation.

1. Plan an assortment of colors Obviously there will be shades of brown –after all, they’re cookies! But some dramatic differences are more fun to arrange and admire than an assortment that doesn’t offer obvious differences between cookies. For instance, place dark chocolate cookies next to powdered sugar-covered cookies next to chocolate chip next to raspberry jam-filled cookies. When choosing the cookies to prepare, think about how they’ll look next to each other.
2. Be sure to create an assortment of shapes Again, a variety of shapes makes the cookie platter pop. Lots of cookies are round, but the holiday season offers other shapes as well. Linzer cookies with little Christmas tree cut-outs in the center offering a glimpse of jam, or squares of caramelized nut bars, sugar cookies cut in the shape of stars, or spritz cookies piped into bars or letters of the alphabet. You can even create a sense of shape by dipping some of the cookies halfway into dark, milk or white chocolate. If the cookies are square and you dip them in chocolate on the diagonal, suddenly you have triangles as part of the picture. Likewise, a drizzle of lines across a round cookie adds additional texture, color, and visual interest.
3. All the cookies should be approximately the same size For the prettiest platter, you want all the cookies to be similar in size. Large cookies that dwarf the others, and tiny cookies that get hidden beneath their neighbors make the whole arrangement look haphazard and messy. If all the cookies are similar in size, their different shapes and colors really stand out.
4. Arrange them in rows or groups of cookie type Just like a garden, you don’t want a tulip next to a rose next to a daisy. You create drama and a visual impact when you group the same items together. You can either group the same cookies together in a strip or wedge (think spokes of a wheel or slices of pie), or arrange them in straight lines, like the offerings on a buffet table in a hotel. Ten chocolate cookies in a straight or angled line, slightly overlapping, next to ten Russian tea balls next to ten thumbprint cookies is a sight to behold. Line them up precisely, like soldiers in formation, and your platter will look like it came from a patisserie.
5. Assemble the cookie trays at the last moment to keep flavors and textures intact Some cookies are crisp and dry, while others are moist and chewy. If you put them all together, wrap tightly and leave for a few hours, not only will the crisp cookies soften as they absorb moisture from the chewy cookies, but the moist cookies will taste stale. Even worse, all the flavors mingle and start to taste like one big and very confused cookie. If you want to bake ahead, be sure to store each cookie type in a separate airtight ziptop bag or container until you are ready to assemble the tray. Once assembled, it’s best to deliver the tray as soon as possible, while all the flavors and textures are at their best.

Please enjoy my version of spritz cookies, offered below, for your cookie selection this holiday season. Simple and buttery, like the best ones, this cookie has almond paste added to the dough for a rich, round almond flavor, and a touch of orange blossom water for a hint of the exotic. Leave them plain, pipe a dot of chocolate into the center, or fill them with jam. Shape them with a cookie press, or pipe them through a star tip in a pastry bag – they’re beautiful any way you make them.

More Creating A Gorgeous Cookie Tray ideas and recipes follow after the jump